Sex Between, The (13 page)

He came across the stoop and down the two steps to the drive without so much as a glance at Lee. He nodded to Maggie, then went around the house to the parking area in back.

Trudel was right behind him, her fat rear end swishing grotesquely under her pleated flannel skirt. As she reached the corner of the house, Trudel turned around and looked straight into Lee's eyes. And she giggled.

"Well," Lee said, "I'm popular today. I can see that."

"Just wait," Andrew said. "You haven't talked to Kate yet." He glanced down at her trousered legs. "And you're not making it any easier for yourself."

Maggie touched her arm. "Go ahead, Lee," she murmured. "Don't make it any worse than it has to be."

Lee snorted. Then she turned to Andrew. "Just tell me one thing," she said. "Has Kate signed all those damned papers she kept talking about?"

He blinked at her foolishly and she wanted to reach out and grab the flabby throat.

"I mean, am I head of the firm now?" she went on patiently.

"Yes, of course," he said.

"And head of the family?" she persisted.

"Yes," Andrew said. Then his eyes narrowed shrewdly. "What are you thinking in back of that bald head of yours?"

Lee ran her palm across her short cropped crown. Then she grinned. "Nothing much," she said. She reached out to pat his flabby red cheek. "I've just decided that it's time a few changes were made around here."

He opened his mouth to say something, but she turned away from him before he got the chance and hurried inside. She took the broad steps by threes and strode rapidly down the hall to Kate's apartment.

The door was open. Kate sat stiff-backed and regal in her wicker rocker directly across from the entrance. Both hands were firmly clamped over the head of her cane.

"Hi," Lee said, still breaking the rules. She was supposed to enter demurely and pay court to Kate. Instead, she grabbed the top of a straight-backed chair and spun it around.

"You're late," Kate said.

Lee glanced at her watch as she straddled the chair. "That's right," she said. "Thirty-eight and a half minutes to be exact."

Kate’s sharp blue eyes darted to the sacredly precise clock on the mantle. "Thirty-nine," she said. "Your watch is slow."

Lee laughed. "You're in a good mood today," she said. "Like everybody else around here." She folded her arms on the back of the chair and propped her chin where they crossed.

The cane thumped loudly into the room. "If both of us were ten years younger," Kate said solemnly, "I'd lay this thing across your backside."

"Oh-oh." Lee reached a hand around to caress her behind, remembering too well the many times Kate had done exactly that. "Whatever I've done, it must have been pretty wild."

Kate sighed and leaned back against her chair. "You are a fool," she said simply. "But then, one expects that from a Van Tassel."

Lee felt the tips of her ears begin to burn. She was used to Kate by now. She knew the old bird never pulled her punches. But until now, Lee had been immune from the most scathing of Kate's criticism. It was a lot easier to take, directed at someone else.

Yet she waited, knowing that Kate needed to lash out at something, at someone. She didn't understand exactly why, but Lee sensed that something had gone wrong with the old lady's plans. That for once in her life, Kate had been caught off-guard.

"Your father and his father before him were fools," Kate went on. "If either of them had lived to be head of this family, there would be nothing left by now. Are you aware of that, Lesley? Do you realize that an empire cannot be built or run on sentiment? Your grandfather wanted nothing more from life than to sit down there on the river bank and fish. And your father was no better. He liked to walk in the garden with your mother and write little poems to send up with her breakfast. Neither of them did a day's work in his life."

The old lady paused to catch her breath and still Lee waited, absorbing the familiar story and the bitterness that went with it. For it was one of Kate's favorite roles, this martyr bit, and she had fed it to Lee along with her pabulum even as an infant. Yet today there was a subtle difference about the tale, as though Kate might be seeking to justify her behavior as well as explain it.

"If I had not been here to do the work they refused to do," Kate said, her voice dry and slightly brittle, "where do you think this family would be?" She paused again and her blue eyes darkened. "Do you understand what I am saying to you, Lesley? How very important—"

"Of course I understand," Lee interrupted, a little bored by the oft repeated tale. "I'm supposed to roll up my sleeves and flex my muscles and get out there and start scrubbing floors.” She heard the edge of bitterness that had crept into her tone and waited calmly for Kate's rebuke.

But it did not come. Instead, Kate folded her hands in her lap and leaned her head against the back of the high chair and closed her eyes.

"No," Kate said, speaking as if to herself now and barely audible, "not quite that. I want you to feel the responsibility of it, Lesley. And that is the one big thing I have not been able to instill in you. I have taught you to work and you are not afraid of that. I have even taught you something of shrewdness and you are not afraid of that either. But the responsibility? Of that you are afraid. You want no part of it. Like the others, you will not inconvenience yourself for the good of the whole."

Lee's fingers went around the slats of the chair back and tightened till the knuckles went white. Now, she knew, they were getting down to cases. And in a minute, Kate would have her stretched on the rack.

Kate opened her eyes and tilted her head toward Lee. "Pieter has been to see me," she said, speaking quietly now, but holding onto a twist of anger. "He expressed... hesitation about marrying Margaret."

"Good," Lee snapped, knowing better, but unable to keep it back. "He's not fit to marry her anyhow."

"And you are?"

Kate's tone was so quiet, yet so straight to the target, that Lee opened her mouth and shut it again without saying a word.

"That is what I meant," Kate said pointedly. She nodded thoughtfully. "You are no different from the others. For the sake of a cheap pleasure, you are willing to sacrifice the welfare of the whole family."

"But goddamn it," Lee exploded, "I'm in love with her, Kate."

They stared at each other levelly for a moment. It was the last thing in the world Lee had intended to say to Kate. And yet she was not sorry. She watched the old lady's eyes narrow and a satanic smile touch one corner of her mouth.

"Love is a childish emotion, Lesley," Kate said evenly, "when duty is at stake."

Lee let her breath go in a long sigh. "I expected you to say something like that," she commented. "You never tried it, so how the hell would you know?"

"That's enough, Lesley," Kate's voice bit out at her. "You are in no position to know whom or what I have loved. That is a secret I have kept to myself."

Lee stared at her dumbly. It seemed impossible that the granite-hard core of Kate's heart had ever melted for anyone. And yet... Deep in the old lady's eyes she saw the pain, the frustration of a remembered something stirred up by Lee's angry words. And in that moment, Lee knew.

Kate touched a fingertip to the corner of one eye.

"I'm sorry," Lee said quietly.

Kate held up her hand. "Sorry is not important, Lesley. I need more than that from you. I need your promise."

Lee nodded.

"I have finally convinced Pieter that Margaret will make a suitable wife." She smiled and the tired eyes sparkled. "It cost me considerably, but it was worth it, I think. You understand, don't you, that I had no choice. Margaret is the only female of childbearing age available. Pieter is the only male."

"It sounds as though you're breeding cattle," Lee said mildly.

Again Kate smiled. "There's very little difference, I suppose. We need to produce a thoroughbred to continue the family line." She waved a hand vaguely. "Here too, sentiment plays no part. You could not father a child, whether Margaret were willing or not."

Lee flushed darkly. "She's willing."

Kate nodded. "I've suspected that. Since the two of you were children..." Her face clouded for a moment, then she was suddenly businesslike once more. "But that is of no importance, Lesley."

Lee sighed and pushed herself off the chair. She jammed her hands deep into the pockets of her slacks and turned away from the sight of the old lady's face. "What is important, Kate?"

"Tradition," Kate said. "Honor. Family. All the values I've tried to pound into you since you were a child. I've let you have your way about almost everything, Lesley. You haven't married. You refuse to live at Ravensway. But about Margaret, I will be firm."

A firm Kate had never been known to be moved by anything. "So what's the promise you want from me?" Lee said to the ceiling.

She heard the old lady sigh and braced her shoulders.

"Simply that you will not interfere," Kate said in clipped words. "That you will never see Margaret again. I have already arranged for Pieter to be retired from the firm. He is to receive a dowry of one hundred thousand and an income of ten thousand a year for life."

Lee whirled to face her. "For sitting on his fat can?"

"For giving you an heir," Kate said flatly.

Lee felt that the wind had been knocked out of her. She balled her hands into fists and let them fall to her sides.

"It sounds a trifle different when it's put that way," Kate said to the wall of Lee's rage. "But that is, after all, the whole point. And as far as Trudel is concerned—"

"What the hell do I care about Trudel?" Lee barked. "As far as I'm concerned, she can... "

"You should be concerned," Kate reminded her. "She's part of the family."

Lee went to the mantle and put her head down on her arm. It was too much. Just too much. She didn't give a good damn about any of them except Maggie. Not even Kate, when you got right down to it. But she could not tell this to Kate. Kate would wave the red flag again, the flag with RESPONSIBILITY spelled out in big gold letters.

"What about Trudel?" she said against her arm.

"I understand from Pieter," Kate said calmly, "that Trudel is... Well, we've always said that Trudel is not quite bright, Lesley. But I believe that the truth of the matter is that Trudel is not quite right."

Despite herself, Lee smiled at the old lady's attempt at humor. "I could have told you that years ago," she said, turning now to face Kate.

Kate nodded. "Of course. I suppose we've all known it really. But it's worse than we might have suspected. Pieter is afraid to let Trudel out of his sight. I understand she has had... fits, I suppose you'd call it. She is sometimes violent and he is afraid that..."

"For chrissake," Lee breathed. "And you expect me to walk out of here and leave Maggie with Pieter and a raving maniac?"

"That is precisely what I expect, Lesley. I have insisted that Pieter have a full-time companion for Trudel, so that she will be no threat to Margaret. And, of course, Pieter will no longer be working, so..." She lifted her shoulders eloquently.

Slowly, Lee shook her head. "You think of everything, don't you?" she said caustically.

"I try to," Kate said, ignoring the jab. "And from now on, you will have to do the same." She held out the cane to Lee.

Lee took it and watched the old lady grab the arms of the rocker to heave herself to her feet. There had been a time, and just a few months ago, when Kate had been as spry as she. Now, every movement was an effort that paled Kate's cheeks and made her breath come shallow. Still, Lee could not see her as a feeble little old woman, not even now. She was still Kate, the Rock of Gibraltar undaunted and undauntable.

She crooked her arm and handed the cane back to Kate. "Come on," she said gently. "They're probably going nuts down there."

It was a long walk for Kate, but it took them only a few moments. Still it was long enough for Lee to know what she had to do. Any way she looked at it, she had no choice. Not even for Maggie.

Just outside the library, Kate paused. "Well?" she said.

And Lee nodded. "I promise," she said. "Hands off."

She turned Kate over to Andrew and went around the side of the room, carefully avoiding Maggie's glance.

Kate thumped her cane and four heads snapped to attention.

The fifth bowed against a pane of the French door and glared dismally out at the lawn.

"Lesley," Kate said, her tone firm but still kindly, "would you care to join us?"

Lee sighed and straightened her shoulders. Then she went to stand near Kate, her back against the wall under the portrait of her father. Here, she could look straight at any of them. And here, she was like a portrait of herself, on display as the last member of a family she had come to despise.

For she did not feel real somehow. The haggling, the signing of papers, Andrew strutting around pretending he was glad about the whole thing, Kate trying to soothe Maggie with the promise of a brilliant future as mistress of Ravensway—none of it made any sense to her.

What the hell is a family, anyhow? Is it two people who love each other and live together because that's the way they want it? Or is it a corporation? Is it something good and tender and warm or is it a monster—impersonal and all devouring?

She had no answers. She glanced out past the fog in her brain and looked at them. Her family. Kate... Andrew... Pieter, his foolish red face dropping "yahs" every time Kate opened her mouth... Trudel...

She took a long look at Trudel, seeing her clearly for the first time in her life. Seeing more significantly the blankness behind her eyes and the droop to her mouth. A moron? Not quite. Insane? She wasn't quite sure of that either, despite what Pieter had confided to Kate. Peculiar, certainly. Trudel had been the kind of child who liked to kill things. Cats mostly. Once a turtle Lee had found by the edge of the river. A little nuts, but, nothing dangerous. And she looked from Trudel to Pieter, wondering...

Pieter bowed low before Kate's rocker and accepted a pale green slip of paper. Lee watched him fold it and slip it into his pants pocket. The movement was meant to be casual. Rut the fingers trembled and she could almost feel Pieter's greed oozing toward her. The puzzle of Pieter expanded and twisted in her mind. He had always seemed such a simple-minded gink. But now, Lee wasn't at all sure.